I’ve been looking for a way to capture my screen (not screen-shot it, but real-time capture) while on my OS (WinXP). I’ve found a lot solutions, but all of them involved shelling out money one way or another. Now why would I do that, when in the age of Open Source and Freeware there are free solutions for almost everything?

And that’s pretty much it. Didn’t cost a cent! You can record uncompressed audio/video and transcode it later:

or you can choose to expirement with those setting to your best liking! I personally record uncompressed and transcode it afterwards. Enjoy!

Edit: According to some users, this method does not work with Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Addendum 18.08.2010: If you are a Windows 7 user, I suggest you use Fraps to record your desktop. Fraps has the ability to record your Aero desktop, which is awesome. No more hassle. Start Fraps, and start recording.

Works great in win xp. Thanks for this. I’ve been using something called amarecco. That one works well (high quality) but the files were huge. With this method i can experiment with the settings and come up with a much better size.

To get rid of the watermark, find an older installer of VHScrCap before it was taken over by the XSplit people, who added the watermark. Look for installer version 1.0.46 which appears to be the last free, no-watermark suite by Hmelyoff, the original developer. Might try here:

Uninstall the watermark version and install the older no-watermark version. Only trouble is, it might not be Windows 7 compatible. I have Win XP SP2, and it works a treat on that.

This page was great and the Virtual Dub and VHScrCap worked perfectly fine on my XP system as promised. Thank you so much for the awesomely simple tutorial; this open source solution was just what I was seeking.